


Find Me Far Away From Here

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: The End of the F'ing World (TV 2017)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, James Lives, Post-Canon, Road Trip, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: James is released from prison after four years for good behaviour. He is told by his parole officer, Jack, that he cannot leave the country. But he has to find her.





	Find Me Far Away From Here

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics are from "We're Going Home" by Vance Joy.
> 
> Enjoy guys.

_I can’t see you, but I hear your call/_

_baby, hold on now_

##  *** * ***

Prison changes you. I know, because it changed me. Not dramatically like in the films. I hadn’t transformed into a hardened criminal. I hadn’t taken a strong disliking to the justice system; only a small one, and that was only because midway through my sentence they changed the meal plan in the cafeteria. I hated fish fingers, but every Friday was Fish Finger Friday.

Prison did change me. It made me human.

See, I had always thought of myself as being somewhere on the fringe of humanity. I wasn’t quite there, but I had one foot in the door. The psychologist they gave me said this had something to do with my mum killing herself in front of me. I was so young when it happened that I switched a piece of myself off in order to cope with all of the trauma. Instead of feeling too much, I subconsciously decided to not feel enough.

I didn’t know if that was true. If that was what caused my apathy and general desire to murder things. But he kept telling me it was true, and I eventually got too tired to argue with him.

The trouble is, I don’t remember a time before my mum died. I remember the actual day as if was yesterday. As if it was a dream I had just woken up from and could still vividly remember. But anything prior to her plunging into the lake with the car windows rolled down—I couldn’t unlock those days. In turn, I couldn’t say whether or not the psychologist was right, or if he was full of shit.

There were snippets. Brief moments—memories. I remembered watching her get ready one evening for a rare date night with my dad. She spritzed a flowery perfume on her wrists, and since the funeral I had wanted to vomit every time I smelt roses. 

I’m not sure if the psychologist was right, but I did know that my shift, my step further into the realm of compassion and kindness and  _love_  began the day Alyssa came up to me during lunch. I hadn’t been aware of it at the time. It happened slowly, in small increments, and by the time I realised what she had done to me, I was lying on the ground bloodied and crying. 

I didn’t like it at first. Imagine going more than half your life thinking you were a callous pre-murderer only to find out that you were actually a regular boy. The change was sudden, and it meant, for a while, I didn’t know who I was. 

But, as I said, prison changed me. In my cell, I grew to understand the person I had become after Alyssa unlocked all of my secret doors. It went on even after she stopped coming to see me. Even after she stopped writing.  

The day I was released on parole for good behaviour, I was more than ready to leave. Four years behind bars had me missing the home I had grown up in. Shockingly, I missed my dad. My bed. The comfort of not fearing for my life. Not that I feared for my life very often. Most of the other prisoners admired my story. I learned quickly that rapists were not liked, but people who killed rapists were. 

I was ready to show off my newly acquired empathy. Dad would be proud. 

They came to get me at lunchtime. Two armed guards, one comically short and the other comically tall, approached me as I sat not touching my fish fingers and told me it was time. 

“Harry,” I said, turning in my chair to face my cellmate. He looked sad, so I held out my burned hand. “Goodbye.”

He took my proffered appendage and shook vigorously. His pale cheeks took on a slight pink colour. “Goodbye, James. An honour spending the last few years with you.”

I removed my hand from his harsh grip—my fingers pulsed, but I smiled at him and raised my eyebrows in farewell—and stood to join the guards. Harry was the one thing about prison I would find myself missing. He had been my cellmate for all four years of my sentence, and we had become what I would consider halfway friends. It was either that, or spend however many days hating each other. 

Harry was in for life. He came home from work one night seven years ago and killed his girlfriend with a carving knife while she slept. She had been pregnant with their baby. 

He was actually alright. Whenever there was someone new to the cell block who looked at me funny, Harry would teach them to be afraid. 

I always had someone watching over me, even in a place filled with the worst kinds of people. 

Harry said he didn’t remember the murder. That was a lie. I had heard him talking in his sleep. He dreamed a lot about that night. I looked past his tendency to tell false truths, though, because I liked being his friend. When I wasn’t worried about him murdering me as I slept on the bottom bunk, he was a lot of fun to be around. 

The two guards walked either side of me out of the eating area. One of them handed me a bag and told me I had to change into the clothes I was brought in wearing. They let me go off to the private toilets, but I wasn’t allowed to lock the door. I dressed in my civilian clothes and the guards escorted me through the penitentiary one final time. 

My trainers squeaked against the white floor. Someone got stabbed in this spot with the sharpened end of a toothbrush last night. Twelve hours ago these floors glistened red with Robert Roberts blood. The cleaners must have spent a long time polishing the area. 

It was the middle of July and there I was, waiting for the man by the prisoner’s exit to give me the rest of my things, in a large, black sweater and long, black trousers. I had managed to run for longer than anything thought I would—longer than  _I_ thought I would. It was the early November when I got picked up. 

“Bye, James. Don’t wanna see you back here, you hear?” one of the guard’s—Jerry; he was a prick—said as I exited the building. 

I nodded back to him and turned to face the outside world. A long fenced-in area blocked me from true freedom, but I heard a buzz and a click and the metal door a couple of metres down the dirt path slid slowly open. The bright sun hurt my eyes. I could already feel the heat crawling underneath my clothes. I wanted to drop the box that I held in my arms and rip off the sweater.

I heard another buzz. A car horn. 

Dad. 

He pulled up in his new Mercedes. The colour was nice. Nicer than the old one. It was grey and shiny. He didn’t get out. Jails had always worried him. Whenever he would come to visit me, his eyes would dart left and right as if he was scared someone was either going to pounce on him, or put him in shackles. As I walked up to meet him I could see my reflection in the passenger side door. 

Dad rolled the window down. He had dressed up to collect me. A thoughtful, if unnecessary, gesture. He smiled so wide I could count all 30 of his teeth. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

He was referring to the car. 

“Yeah,” I said looking it over. 

I got inside. Dad immediately started talking. I had forgotten how much he loved to fill the quiet with meaningless noise.

“And she wasn’t expensive. And she’s an automatic. How handy is that? I kept putting my foot down for the clutch when I first got her …”

He went on about the car, never once mentioning anything about the fact that I had just been released from prison after being interned for murder, as he drove me to my parole officer’s building. 

He had no idea I was going to steal it from him later. He never learned. 

##  *** * ***

_If you’re waiting all your life/_

_you won’t ever go_

##  *** * ***

Jack Smith was a round, balding man. His entire office smelt of cigarettes.

In prison, cigarettes were used as currency. Because of their worth, I thought I should try them out. Build up an addiction. But one drag and I was sick. They reminded me too much of Alyssa. Of our time together. 

I sat in front of Jack Smith holding my breath as he talked about the rules and regulations of being a man out on parole. There weren’t a lot. Don’t break the law was the big one Jack kept repeating in his harsh Geordie accent. 

“You look like a good enough kid, James,” he said.

It irritated me. “I’m not a kid.”

Jack rolled his eyes and wrote something down on a sheet of paper I couldn’t see. “I said you look like one. You coerced a girl into running away with you and then killed someone. You’re obviously not that good.”

I didn’t like Jack. 

“Speaking of the girl,” Jack said, and my ears strained instantly. He looked down at me, scratching his scruffy beard. “You’re not to see her.”

I felt sick. My chest hurt. My hands started to shake, so I stuffed them underneath my thighs. “I don’t even know where she is,” I said. 

Jack didn’t look convinced. He nodded, but there was mistrust in his brown eyes. “Sure, Kid.” He liked calling me  _Kid_. I think it was a purposeful decision. An attempt to undermine me. “Look, just … no causing trouble. No leaving the country. No late night parties. You’ll be coming to me every two weeks for the next five years, and if I smell even one drop of alcohol on your breath, you’re gonna be in big trouble.” 

“Yeah. Of course.” 

“It’s hard,” he said. He was like my dad. He loved talking just to save himself from the quiet. I had learned in prison to be okay with silence. “It’s hard to come out of there. Especially for someone as young as you, James. You’re gonna struggle to find yourself, but you’ll get there in the end. You have to. The only two other options are more jail time and death.”

Jack seemed like he was trapped between being my parole officer and being my therapist. I preferred the parole officer persona. Inspirational speeches tended to irk me slightly.

Besides, I didn’t find it hard to readjust to life as a free man. Going to jail had put my world on pause. Now that I was out, I could finally press play again. And Jack didn’t know what he was talking about. I had not lost myself. I knew exactly who I was. 

“Get out of here, Kid.” Jack waved me off, telling me to be on time for our next meeting and warning me he might drop in unannounced at times to check up on me. 

I hoped he wouldn’t come tonight. 

I left Jack’s smoke-filled office still itching to take my sweater off. Dad was waiting outside in the car for me, blasting the AC and listening to the radio. We drove home. Dad commentated the entire time, running lines with the radio host. Was this what he had done while I was jail? Talk to people who couldn’t hear him? 

When we arrived home, I was overcome by this strange feeling. It was as if I had been away on vacation for a really, really long time. The air outside of the car was warm and I looked at my house and I was … content. Almost happy. To be there. To be with my dad. To be away from the cold, pristine walls of the jailhouse. We went inside, me carrying the box, my dad carrying a smile and the keys to his car. He hadn’t stopped smiling since he collected me. 

I felt guilty that I would again be responsible for wiping that smile off of his face as I watched him place the car keys in a small, ceramic bowl on the kitchen table. 

Dad left me alone for a while so I could reacquaint myself with the place. Everything looked pretty much the same. It was all of the old things I had seen my whole life. All of the seventies-era wood panelling; the small, box telly; the ugly sofas upon which I sat plotting a wild assortment of different murders. 

I trudged through the long halls and found my way upstairs. My room was untouched. The sheets looked washed and the floor looked hoovered, but other than that there were no changes. 

Placing the cardboard box on the bed, I finally tore my sweater off and threw it into the empty bin by the door that lead the roof. Next went the trousers. The psychologist said at our last session that when I was released I should throw away as much as I could that reminded me of my crimes. Standing in just my pants, I lifted the lid of the box and stared inside. I knew exactly what was in there without needing to study each item. There were handfuls of letters. Over 400 with my name on them and a red lipstick print on the upper right hand corner.  

I reached inside. I sensed the energy radiating off of the envelopes as my fingertips neared them. 

I brushed against a stack and instantly retracted my hand as though I had been electrocuted. 

I couldn’t do it. I quickly grabbed the lid and pressed it firmly over the box, blocking its contents from view. Half-naked, I sat on my bed, ignoring my dad’s call from downstairs that dinner was ready. It was unfair, but I needed him to think I had gone to sleep. 

Hours went by before I heard the telly go quiet. Dad came up several minutes later. I listened carefully for the sound of his snores. They met my ears in less than half-an-hour. 

I dressed quietly in a pair of dark jeans and a plain black t-shirt. From inside my neat closet, I pulled an old zip-up hoodie just in case I got cold on my journey and the grey suit I wore for my trial. I made my way to the door, stopping before I opened it to look back at the box on the bed. 

I should have left them, but they called to me and I was their slave, so I snatched the box and opened the door one-handed. 

Downstairs, in the kitchen, the keys were exactly where Dad had left them. Setting the note I had written for him on the table, I plucked the keys from the bowl and soundlessly crept out of the house. The car started with ease, and the engine was quiet, like it knew we were not meant to be doing this. Like it was on my side. And I drove away. Headlights shining, an old tape playing through the speakers. 

 _I’ve gone to find her_. 

That was what the note said. 

 _I’ve gone to find her_. 

##  *** * ***

_We’re going home/_

_If we make it or we don’t, we won’t be alone_

##  *** * ***

I think I should explain what happened. I understand how this could be confusing out of context.

That day on the beach, I managed to get away. I still don’t know how I was able to outrun an armed task force. I guess my adrenaline took me to safety. I left with Alyssa’s voice in my ear and my heart pounding in my throat.

For weeks I lived on the run in a totally different way than before. I had no car, no money, no change of clothes. I was on my own. Without Alyssa there to guide me, it was a wonder I dodged the police for as along as I did.

Eventually, they apprehended me. Someone had spotted me crossing the road near a petrol station. It didn’t take long for a large horde of police officers to arrive. They sniffed me out with proficiency and I went with them without a fight. By this time, I knew Alyssa was safe, so it didn’t matter what happened to me.

It was a speedy trial. I confessed to the murder. I confessed that I manipulated Alyssa into joining me as she watched from the benches, doing her best not to cry.

Because I was a minor when the killing took place, and because Eunice gave a testimony defending my actions (Alyssa’s mum didn’t allow her on the stand), the judge only gave me ten years.  _With a possibility of parole in four_.

I turned to face my dad as they took me away in handcuffs. It was the first time I had ever seen him cry. He held it together in front of me when Mum killed herself, but I think that even though she was gone, he still had me. Now he had no one. He wasn’t the sort of person fit for being alone.

Alyssa was in shambles too. Her mum kept telling her to be quiet, but she stared after me as they dragged me away. I could tell she wanted to call my name like she had done on the sand. I wanted to call her name as well. Neither of us said anything out loud, though. But her shining blue eyes met mine, and I heard her say a thousand and one things.

She wasn’t meant to, but Alyssa persuaded my dad to give her the mailing address of the prison and my inmate number. She wrote to me first. I hadn’t been in for more than a week when I received her first letter.

 _James_ , she said.  _I miss you like fuck already_.

We started writing to each other. One letter a week. I would tell her what life behind bars was like. She would tell me what life behind her step-dad’s door was like. She would tell me how badly she wanted to be there with me. How nobody fucking believed her when she said she went with me willingly. No one except Eunice.

 _Find me when you get out_.

She ended every single one of her letters with that line.

 _I will_  was how I ended every one of mine.

Three months into my sentence, during visiting hours, a guard came up to me while I played a game of cards with Harry. He said there was a girl here to see me. It was Alyssa. A black-haired Alyssa wearing round glasses and oversized clothes. Through her disguise, I knew it was her and my skin prickled with nerves and excitement. I hadn’t been this close to her since I whacked the butt of her father’s gun against her eyebrow.

She explained that she had been working on getting herself a fake ID since my sentencing. She showed me the card.  _Bonnie E Parker_ was her new name.

“Nobody fucking knows who she is,” she said.

“Who is she?” I asked.

Alyssa smiled. My fingers itched to reach out to her, but touching wasn’t allowed at these things. “Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow,” she said.

We still corresponded through letters. Sometimes she couldn’t come up to see me, so letters were our only consistent method of communication. I didn’t mind writing to her. I liked it. It felt really personal and intimate.

I knew something had happened the last time she came to see me. She was shy. Closed. The atmosphere was off.

“I got into Edinburgh,” she said, and everything changed. “They’d waitlisted me. I got the letter yesterday.”

Alyssa was smart. I was probably the only person not surprised she had managed to snag a spot at Edinburgh.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d applied?” The question came out harsh, but I was confused. I was angry and hurt. Alyssa was always so good at making me feel things. Sometimes I hated her for that.

We had talked before about her going somewhere local, but Edinburgh was in a whole other fucking country.

“I didn’t think they’d accept me. They didn’t, at first.” Across from me, Alyssa’s eyes were starting to well with tears.

“But now they have,” I said.

She nodded as the guard told us visiting hours were over. I didn’t say anything as she left. I just stared at the table until it blurred.

She never came back. She still wrote to me, but I stopped responding. I can’t tell you why. I think a lot of things factored into my stupid decision. Whenever I got the urge to pick up a pen, I would drop it almost instantly out of guilt.

Eventually the letters stopped too. The last one was addressed from Scotland.

 _Find me when you get out_  was all it said.

My last trip to the computer lab at the prison I spent researching the university. I saw her name on a list of students graduating on the 14th of July. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I watched my suit flap in the slight breeze coming through the open windows, wondering if it would still fit.

I didn’t know as I drove pasts signs directing me to Edinburgh if she still wanted me to find her. I kept telling myself I was being an idiot. It had been more than three years since we spoke last. She probably had forgotten about me altogether. If I found her, she would say  _James? Who the fuck is James?_ and slam the door in my face.

I had to try, though. I promised I would.

##  *** * ***

I arrived in Edinburgh at dawn. I had to stop at one point to sleep at the side of the road. I hadn’t realised how tired I was, but I guess the emotional toll of being released from prison had hit me harder than I expected it to. Scotland was very green. Very old. For the early hour, there were lots of students walking about on the outskirts of campus.

I parked the car in a free spot near a stone church and immediately started asking people if they knew where I could find Alyssa. The majority of them looked at me as if I was certifiable. On the outside, I imagined I looked crazed. My hair was a mess. My clothes were wrinkled and probably held the smell of a person who had spent all night driving. Some were more inclined to talk, to tell me how much fun  _Lyssa_ was, although none had an address for me.

After thirty minutes and countless inquiries, I was ready to start hammering on doors. But a man who looked around my age uttered the very words I was desperate to hear.

“I know where Lyssa is,” he said.

I turned to him. The sun was behind him, making it difficult for me to discern any features, but he was tall and pale and well-dressed. His jaw was sharp and covered in a light smattering of auburn hairs.

Shielding my eyes, I said, “Where is she?”

He came closer. I saw the outline of bulging muscles hidden beneath his long sleeves. “The real question,” he said, his voice deep, “is why are you looking for her at five o’clock on a Sunday morning?”

“I’m an old friend,” I lied. “She told me that she was graduating today, but forgot to mention where she lived.”

“That sounds like a lie,” the young man said.

 _Shit_. “Are you going to tell me where she is?”

“Are you going to tell me why you’re really here?”

I huffed. Like a child. Balling my fists in frustration, I looked up at the nameless boy. “Look, I need to find her. It’s important.”

“Hey, man, I’m asking for your sake as much as hers.”

I was confused as to what he meant by that.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

He crept a little closer and bowed his head, his eyes moving left and right as if he was about to tell me a secret. “I used to date her,” he said. It was thrilling how fast the impulse to punch this stranger came over me. “Dude, she’s mad. I had to break up with her in the end. I don’t know if she’s always been like this, but really, she’s mental.”

“How do you mean?” I said, my teeth clenched so hard I swear I could feel them cracking.

Oblivious to my change in mood, he continued, “Well, I found her old journal one day and she had written all of this weird shit inside.”

“Like what?”

“ _I miss James_.  _Mum thinks I should hate him because he killed someone, but he only did it to protect me_.  _I still love him_.” He paused, looking me up and down. “That sounds deranged to me. Either she’s in love with a murderer, or she’s got some sick fantasies.”

Internally, I was fuming. But I still needed to know where Alyssa lived. “Are you going to tell me,” I said again, “where she is?”

“Your funeral, man,” he said before finally giving me  _Lyssa’s_  address.

“Thanks,” I said. I smiled at him, my right arm moving back.

Prison had changed me. I was no longer limited to assaulting my dad. I could punch strangers now without issue.

“What the fuck, man!”

I heard him shouting after me, swearing at me, but I turned on my heel and left him with blood streaming down his face, a satisfied smirk pulling at my lips.

##  *** * ***

The nameless, bleeding boy told me she lived with three other girls a few minutes off campus. I followed his directions until I came to a long stretch of attached houses. Certain homes had lights on, but the majority were dark, the curtains pulled closed.

I was nervous as I started walking down the left side of the road. Fearful. I kept imagining our first interaction. Lots of my scenarios ended with her closing the door in my face and telling me she never wanted to see me again. In some of them, she threw herself at me. Halfway down the street, I stopped trying to envision what she would say or do. I had been thinking about it for too long, and I knew by then that I couldn’t pretend to have a clue what was going to happen.

Cars lined the pavement bumper to bumper. I wondered if one of them was Alyssa’s. She hadn’t had her license when I knew her, but a lot of things can happen in three years. It would make sense that she learned to drive being so far away from home.

Number 37. I had arrived. The door was a deep red colour. In my head, I kept flashing to the day we met. Her jumper had been the same shade as the door. The image changed to the last time I saw her—her eyes had been the same shade as the door.

I was getting cold feet. I stood, idling outside the house for ten minutes. The sun beat hard against the black fabric of my shirt, but a breeze in the air cooled my skin. I would burn if I didn’t do something.

So, I did something. I knocked on the door. No, I banged on it. Four hard raps that hurt my bruising knuckles.

My lungs shrivelled as I dropped my hand. I couldn’t breathe. Anticipation and frenzied panic had me by the throat. Inside, muffled, I heard footsteps coming slowly down creaking stairs. I almost ran then. But the door handle rattled and I found I couldn’t have moved even if I really wanted to. Which, I understood, I didn’t.

A tall girl with red hair and a cricket bat in her hand met my eye as the door swung open. The staircase ascended behind her, and to the right I saw a path leading towards the kitchen.

“What do you want?” The redhead had the cricket bat ready to swing if she decided my answer wasn’t sufficient.

I heard a voice. “Callie,” it said, and my eyes flicked up to the top of the stairs. In the shadow of the landing, wearing only a checkered button-up and shorts, I saw another girl. “Callie, what the fuck is going on down there? Who is it?”

Callie turned her head. “I’m just trying to figure”—

I didn’t let Callie finish. I knew who it was at the top of the stairs.

Bravely—stupidly—I pushed through the doorway and past Callie with her cricket bat. She shouted something at me, maybe she asked for someone to call 9-9-9, but her voice fell flat on my deaf ears. I climbed two stairs before my feet decided they couldn’t move any further.

She gasped.  _That_  I could hear. That noise filled me with such life, like I had been dead these past three years. Like prison was actually another name for purgatory and that gasp was the thing that finally brought me back to earth.

“You go by Lyssa now,” I said.

I don’t know why I said it. Why it was the first thing to come out of my mouth after we had been separated for such a long time. I wished I had said something cooler. Something one of those guys in those films she was always talking about would say.

I had so much—too much—to tell her. I had just punched her prick of an ex-boyfriend. I was on parole and could be sent back to jail if Jack found me. I had all of her letters sitting in the passenger seat of my dad’s car.

I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That I loved her. But I couldn’t conjure the words.

“James,” she said. Hearing her say my name, even if it shook and crumbled on its way out of her mouth, pushed me further up the stairs. Callie was still talking. Alyssa got sick of it. “Be quiet, Callie. I’ll deal with this.”

“Lyssa, who the fuck is he?”

Alyssa and I were at eye level now. I could see the freckles dotted all over her face. The different blues in her eyes. The curve of her lips. She was real. Breathing …  _alive_.

I stared at her, unsure of how to proceed.

“He’s a ghost. And it’s Alyssa, Callie.  _A_ -lyssa,” Alyssa said before grabbing ahold of my right wrist and pulling me into a bedroom.

It was hers. I recognised that instantly. There were pastel colours all around the place. For someone with such a cynical outlook on the world, Alyssa loved her pale pinks and yellows.

She let go of my wrist, and a wash of cold air moved down my back.

“What are you doing here?” She sounded mystified and tired. It stood to reason that she was tired. I had probably woken her up. But there was also a slight tremor in the words, like her throat was vibrating. “James,” she said.

“Alyssa.” I paused, searching her face. Her chin wobbled a little bit. Her eyes were shining. “We need to talk.”

“No,” she protested, shaking her head, “we don’t need to talk, James. I don’t want to talk.”

“You do,” I said. “You do want to talk to me.”

“You can’t tell people what they want, James. What makes you think that I want to talk to you?”

Maybe enough time had passed that she had forgotten. The answer was right there. If she only looked down.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Alyssa held her arms out and blew out a puff of air. “It really isn’t obvious to me. Please, James, enlighten me.”

She kept saying my name.

“Because you’re wearing my shirt.” I pointed to the button-up. My dad must have given it to her at some point. Or maybe she stole it. Either way, it was mine, and she was wearing it.

She looked down at herself. She pressed her hands against the fabric, looking up at me through wet eye lashes. “Why are you here?”

“I came to find you,” I said.

##  *** * ***

_When I see your light shine/_

_I know I’m home_

##  *** * ***

We sat on her bed for a while, speaking every now and again as the sun continued rising, giving everything in Alyssa’s room a yellow glow. I was happy to just be there with her, to finally be a  _we_ again. I didn’t care that we weren’t talking.

Especially because when she did speak, she said things like, “You’re just like my dad.”

I sputtered. It felt as if she had trodden on my toes. “No, Alyssa”— I started, but I cut myself off. She was right.

I wasn’t like her dad in the sense that I would turn her into the police for reward money. But I had abandoned her. Well, as much as I could abandon her from within prison.

There was no point in defending my stupid, childish decision to cut ties with her. Alyssa was my lifeline. I knew now that without her I had been drowning.

“I’m sorry for leaving you,” I said eventually. We had moved closer to each other in the stillness. Outside her room, her flatmates were readying themselves for their graduation. Alyssa would have to start preparing soon. Her robes hung in her open wardrobe. “I was scared you would leave me. So, I left you first.”

“That’s stupid, James,” she told me.

I smiled. How could I not? Just a quick one. Enough to inform her that I heard the forgiveness in her voice. “I know.”

Alyssa’s hand crept towards mine. Her pinky grazed my thumb. I struck, entwining our fingers. It really was like pressing play. Like we were picking up exactly where we had left off.

“I love you,” I said, my tongue drying as our faces neared.

“I know,” Alyssa said. I felt her smile as I kissed her soft lips. She opened her mouth, pouring her breath into my lungs. Finally, I could breathe again. “I love you too.”


End file.
